Let The Slow Boy Speak Poem by Salvatore Ala

Let the slow boy speak
Said the teachers who hadn't caught up to me.
Let him read his slow poems
That have already passed by us unheard.
Let the left-handed boy try
The nuns said, who struggled to correct me.
Let the immigrant boy sing between languages,
Teaching the shared meanings
Of his third language.
Burn up your degrees, you academic poets,
The slow boy with a barber's razor
Cuts you with a single pass.
Throw out your papers, city intellects,
The boy from provincial Sicily
Sings like a stab wound to the sun,
The boy from a foreign place
Sings with native grace.